A Quiet Place: Day One

"Sam" (Lupita Nyong'o) is living at a residential home when a group of them take a day out to the big city. She only agrees to go if she can have pizza, but that opportunity is soon kiboshed when their minder "Reuben" (Alex Wolff) tries to herd them back home after a city-wide alert is called. Things are falling from the sky - and these things are hungry. With carnage ensuing, she and her cat manage to find refuge in the theatre they were attending but with even the slightest of sounds attracting their foes, she realises that heading to Harlem for a Pepperoni from Patsy's might be her best option. Walking silently, she encounters the dazed "Eric" (Joseph Quinn) who has come from the UK to study law in the USA and has ended up with much more than he bargained for. Initially reluctant, she agrees to walk with him and gradually a bond develops as the environment gradually and dangerously disintegrates before them. Luckily, the monsters can't swim - so perhaps they can try to make it to the water? Obviously there's not a great deal of dialogue here, so the accumulating sense of (limited) menace is built by two actors who are adequate but who don't really have enough to work with to make this stand out. As ever, the lengths people will go to to save their pets astonishes me. Danger everywhere and yet both feel the need to risk life and limb for a moggy! Bizarre. It's difficult at the best of times to get much traction from prequels, and Michael Sarnoski doesn't really manage to develop the characters or the story beyond this ninety minutes of stand alone cinema that really has little to do with the other, far better, films from earlier in this strand. It's watchable enough, but nothing remarkable. Pity.

Smart horror films are one movie genre of which not nearly enough offerings are produced. These pictures are proof positive that edgy, spooky stories can be successfully made without having to kill off the cast or engage in spectacles of gratuitous gore. The works of filmmakers like Jordan Peele and Alex Garland exemplify this, as do the three releases in this impressive franchise. And this latest entry is, without a doubt, the best of the lot. “Day One” draws upon the mythology introduced in the series’ first two films, but it takes matters in a new, more insightful direction and does so, ironically, by way of a prequel going back to the origin of this gripping, ongoing saga. What separates this film from what preceded it, however, is that it presents yet another story in the franchise but from an entirely new angle, with new characters, a new setting, and a new, more profound, more nuanced focus. Instead of small-town America, where the first two pictures were set, this offering takes place in New York City, showing what happens when the Big Apple is attacked by the now-familiar aliens that hunt by way of sound as the means for finding their prey – and the measures that surviving humans must take to stay silent to keep from being spotted. The narrative principally follows a terminally ill poet (Lupita Nyong’o) living in hospice care who has become resigned to the fate of her impending death but now seeks to stay alive at all costs, most notably in helping a frightened Englishman living in Gotham (Joseph Quinn) and protecting her beloved (and adorable) comfort cat. These circumstances give her a new purpose at a time when she might have otherwise completely given up hope. In telling this story, the film also examines the perils of having to suddenly adjust to a “new normal” under unpredictable conditions, as well as the need for all of us to pull together in a united front in the wake of these trying circumstances. But there’s more to it than that, including metaphorical themes and symbolic imagery that truly make this more than just a horror film (and even more than just a smart horror movie at that). While it’s true the story meanders somewhat at times, it nevertheless presents viewers with a thoughtful tale, punctuated by excellent camera work, a fine soundtrack and a superb, award-worthy performance by Nyong’o. Even if you haven’t seen the two previous films in this series or have much interest in this genre, writer-director Michael Sarnoski’s second feature outing is well worth your time. It’s a smart, smart, smart film that rises far above what one might typically expect from a horror flick – and one that will leave you with a lot more than just a few good scares upon exiting the theater.